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Cattle Capitalists: The XIT Empire in Texas and Montana
The Texas Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of Texas public land in exchange for construction of the monumental red granite Capitol that continues to house Texas state government today. The Capitol project and the land went to an Illinois syndicate led by men influential in business and politics. Austin's statehouse is a recognizable symbol of Texas around the world. So too, the massive Panhandle tract given in exchange -- what became the "fabulous" XIT Ranch -- has come to, for many, symbolize Texas and its role in the nineteenth century cattle boom. After finding sales prospects for the land, known as the Capitol Reservation, weak at the time, backed by British capital, the Illinois group, often called the Capitol Syndicate, turned their efforts to cattle ranching to satisfy investors until demand for the land increased. The operation included a satellite ranch in Montana to which two-year-old steers from Texas were sent for fattening, often "over the trail" on a route increasingly blocked by people and settlement. Rather than a study focused on ranching operations on the ground -- the roundups, the cattle drives, the cowboys -- this instead uncovers the business and political side of the Syndicate's ranching operation, headquartered in Chicago. The operation of the XIT Ranch looked more like other Gilded Age businesses employing armies of clerks, bookkeepers, and secretaries instead of how great western ranches have been portrayed for years in popular literature and media. The XIT Ranch existed from 1885 to 1912, yet from Texas to Montana the operation left a deep imprint on community culture and historical memory.
Comparative Ecology of Benthic Communities in Natural and Regulated Areas of the Flathead and Kootenai Rivers, Montana
A comparative study was made of environmental variables and the density, biomass, diversity, and species composition of macroinvertebrates in areas downstream from a dam with a hypolimnetic release (Hungry Horse Dam on the Flathead River) and a dam with a selective withdrawal system (Libby Dam on the Kootenai River). A major objective of this study was to examine the response of macroinvertebrate communities to defined environmental gradients in temperature, flow, substrate, and food-related variables (periphyton, particulate organic carbon in the seston). In addition, the effects of experimental manipulations in discharge on macroinvertebrate drift and stranding were assessed, and the effects of temperature on the growth rates and emergence of five species of insects were measured.
The Effects of Freshet Turbidity on Selected Aspects of the Biogeochemistry and the Trophic Status of Flathead Lake, Montana U.S.A.
The present study sought to falsify three distinct hypotheses about how the interactions of freshet clay turbidity with Flathead Lake may be affecting its trophic state: 1) that freshet-derived turbidity causes precipitation of organic detritus from the water column by flocculation and/or coagulation of dissolved and colloidal organic carbon and seston; 2) that flocculated clay-organic detritus complexes become increasingly infested with microbial biomass as they sink through the water column; and 3) that primary productivity is reduced and subsequently maintained at low levels throughout the summer and fall because of the phosphorus stripping action of sedimenting clay particles. In addition, this study attempted to firmly document mass balances for some ecologically important elements, nutrient loading rates, steady state nutrient concentrations and annual lake primary productivity. It was also necessary to assess the trophic status of the lake in light of any new findings from this research, especially related to the ecological role of freshet turbidity.
Filial Therapy with Native Americans on the Flathead Reservation
This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of the 10-week filial therapy model as an intervention for Native American parents and their children residing on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. Filial therapy is an approach used by play therapists to train parents to be therapeutic agents with their own children. Parents are taught basic child-centered play therapy skills and practice those skills during weekly play sessions with their children. The purpose of this study was to determine if filial therapy is effective in: 1) increasing parental acceptance of Native Americans residing on the Flathead Reservation of their children; 2) reducing the stress level of those parents; 3) improving empathic behaviors of those parents toward their children; 4) changing the play behaviors of children with their parents who participated in the training; and, 5) enhancing the self-concept of those children. The experimental group parents (N=11) received 10 weekly 2-hour filial therapy training sessions and participated in weekly 30-minute play sessions with one of their children. The control group (N=10) received no treatment during the 10 weeks. All adult participants completed the Porter Parental Acceptance Scale and the Parenting Stress Index. Child participants completed the Joseph Pre-school and Primary Self Concept Screening Test. Parent and child participants were videotaped playing together in 20-minute videotaped play sessions before and after the training to measure empathic behavior in parent-child interactions and desirable play behaviors in children. Analyses of Covariance revealed that the Native American parents in the experimental group significantly increased their level of empathy in their interactions with their children. Experimental group children significantly increased their level of desirable play behaviors with their parents. Although parental acceptance, parental stress, and children's self concept did not improve significantly, all measures indicated positive trends. In addition, this study gives rise to questions regarding the …
Getting It On Home: Ways of Telling the Story
In this collection of poems and essays, the author demonstrates two different methods for examining the same theme: the notion of "home"—how to get there, how to remain there and bear articulate witness to the forces which drive that author to write. The introduction sets forth an explanation for the use of the specific form chosen for expression, with an analysis of the intent behind that form. In these essays and poems, the author accounts for her years on the Texas Panhandle, in Montana, and a year spent teaching in Prague, Czechoslovakia. These locations furnish the moments and incidents of conflict and resolution that make up the dramatic incidents of the included material.
The Operation of Centralized Purchasing for the State-Supported Institutions of the State of Texas and Selected States
The investigator made a study of the history, philosophy, method, and operation of centralized purchasing as it now exists for the state-supported institutions in the State of Texas and other selected states (New Hampshire, Montana, Michigan, Nebraska, and Minnesota).
Size Fractionation of Metabolically Active Phytoplankton and Bacteria in Two Diverse Lentic Systems
Simultaneous size fractionation of plankton populations associated with NaH^14CO_3 and ^3H-glucose uptake was employed in eutrophic Lake Texoma (Texas and Oklahoma) and oligotrophic Flathead Lake (Montana). Autoradiography was utilized to determine the role of specific microorganisms in community metabolism. Ultraplankton (0.45-10 μm) dominated plankton numbers and metabolic activity in both aquatic systems. Many of the most abundant species were not the most productive, in terms of inorganic C fixation. Rates of heterotrophic uptake of ^3H-glucose were small in comparison to photolithotrophic uptake in both lakes, Photoheterotrophy was more extensive in Flathead Lake, Autoradiographs indicated that bacteria were responsible for observed photoheterotrophy. Oscillatoria sp. exhibited. mixotrophy in Lake Texoma,
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